Archives for April 2017

This week the city of New Orleans began removing monuments to Confederate figures from public areas. This process began two years ago when the city council voted to remove the monuments but was then stalled by lawsuits attempting to keep them in place. The fact that it is considered “controversial” to remove monuments to a failed state that waged war against the United States of America in order to preserve its economic base of chattel slavery should appall every American.

The first monument removed on Monday was an obelisk in Liberty Place on Canal Street. This was no statue to an honorable general or great leader who happened to be on the wrong side of history. It was erected in 1891 to commemorate the attempted uprising sixteen years prior by the Crescent City White League to overthrow the recently elected Union-allied governor. They succeeded and occupied the state house for three days before President Grant sent in federal troops to clear them out.

The next monuments to come down will be statues of General Robert E Lee, PGT Beauregard, and first and only Confederate President Jefferson Davis. These are not the only honorifics bestowed on Confederate figures in the state. There are numerous schools, streets, and even parishes named after them. I happen to live in Jefferson Davis Parish, but there is also a Beauregard Parish and Allen Parish, named after a Confederate governor.

The United States military has dropped almost 50,000 bombs on Syria and Iraq over the last two years. Most of that has been against ISIS targets in the desert regions between the two countries, but some, including President Trump’s airport bombings last week, were against the Assad regime itself.

Apparently we needed more evidence that everyone in politics now holds the exact opposite positions on every process issue that they did for the entire eight years of the Obama presidency.

In 2013 the Democrats were fed up with Republicans’ obstruction of Obama’s judicial nominees, so they changed the rules of the Senate to only require a simple majority to stop debate and proceed to a vote, down from the usual 60.

Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to consider filibuster reform. It had to be done.

Republicans condemned the move as against the character of the chamber, and anti-republican. They were right, in a sense.

Since Democrats now hold a 48-vote minority in the Senate after President Trump was elected, more than enough to block his Supreme Court nominee, both parties switched sides. Republicans eliminated the 60-vote threshold and confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the Court with 54 votes.